


It's Just Medicine

by trepidatingboarfetus



Category: Grand Theft Auto Series (Video Games), Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Bad Decisions, Drug Addiction, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:14:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28765389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trepidatingboarfetus/pseuds/trepidatingboarfetus
Summary: Every addiction has an ending, bad or good, and it's up to us to decide our fate. The process is different for everyone.Trigger Warnings Apply.
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	It's Just Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to go in the upcoming second wave of the fanzine, but I've run out of room because of writing so much, so I'm posting a few here instead lol. Anyway, trigger warnings ahoy. This has to do with addictions, but it's also about realizing the pain others are put through and trying to get better after so many false starts. 
> 
> Some of us have a longer journey to take than others, some a totally different one. Each one of us has an ending. What's yours?
> 
> Medicine is by Daughter.

_You’ve got a warm heart_

_You’ve got a beautiful brain_

_But it’s disintegrating_

_From all the medicine_

He can’t recall how many times he’s found Trevor like this, on his back, mouth foaming, gagging on his own sputum, vomit, or a combination of the two...sometimes even cum, but he doesn’t want to dwell on that.

He’s watched muscles painfully contracting and contorting in every manner of movement as his friend has nearly overdosed himself to death over the years -- sometimes intentionally -- and he’s often wondered how things would be, how much easier it would all be if he were to just stop caring so fucking much. Just learn to let go finally. 

Thoughts flitter through his brain like little bothersome gnats though, whispering ideas like _remember what Trevor was like when he wasn’t using so much, he’s such a good guy without this shit, it doesn’t matter how much former schooling he’s had because he’s fucking gorgeously brilliant, and what would he be like if only he weren’t like this,_ if only, if only, if only….

But Trevor _is_ like this. It’s become like watching a fourth-stage cancer patient fight their last fight. He, Ron, Wade, Chef, Lamar, and Frank -- hell, even the kids when they come around -- they’re all just sitting around as if his domicile is a fucking hospice, and they’re cleaning up after him, waiting for him to die. He has moments of beautiful clarity up until they realize he’s shitting himself or is starting to vomit...and the good begins to fade. 

And there’s no nixing the problem that’s killing him in the first place. He outright refuses rehab. So what would be so wrong with just emotionally checking out?

_Pick it up, pick it all up_

_And start again_

_You’ve got a second chance_

_You could go home_

_Escape it all_

_It’s just irrelevant_

He can do this. Fuck, he’s done it physically before even if he never quite finished with the sentimental attachment issues of it as he should have. It’s draining, all of this sitting, waiting, and worrying. How many years has he done it? It’s about eighty percent of the fucking reason he got out the life the first time. 

It’s difficult to watch someone you love just...knowingly destroy themselves. 

He’d been down that rodeo once with his dad, something his mom had blamed him for all the way up until he'd finally left home, and even if he logically knew that she was just acting out, that there was no real way to blame a fucking kid for a drunkard’s mistakes, they were memories that will likely haunt him the rest of his life until the grave. 

Ignoring Trevor’s flaws had been a pattern way back when that he’d first laxed into out of necessity because he didn’t want to run a prospective partner off, especially not when they got on so well. Then it became about not really caring what his buddy got up to as long as it didn’t affect him in any goddamn way, he was golden. In those days, they could be found using together anyway, so it wasn’t like Mike was the poster child of “saintly.” 

But then at some point, they connected on a _deeper_ level, and it grew into a fear of not wanting to mention the Big Bad Problem because like Lil Mikey back in the old days, he was afraid that saying something meant that Trevor would hate him and leave him, and that would be it.

So he said nothing, and it grew and grew as they pulled further apart. 

No, this is the one place he can’t just pull away from because he must treat it with the sensitivity it deserves. He _knows_ he caused this mess. 

_You could still be_

_What you want to be_

_What you said you were_

_When I met you_

_When you met me_

There are recollections from another time and place where such youthful faces greeted each other, sized one another up in that carefree way that being full of piss and vinegar made still-on-the-cusp-of-their-teens boys act, but they meant nothing by it, not really. They had already had a keen eye on one another since the flare gun had gone off because how do guys _not_ fall for shit like that? It was practically a pick-up line as old as the mob.

And he remembers the leather RCAF pilot’s jacket that Trevor clung to like a security blanket back in those days, still holding out hope somehow that he could transfer what little time he’d officially managed to serve in the USAF where they gave less fucks about things like outbursts, fist-fighting, and uncontrollable sobbing as long as they were kept to a minimum back into another RCAF attempt, but it wasn’t registering yet that the RCAF wasn’t ever going to let him in no matter what crazy country deemed him fit for duty. 

It hurt to see. He lost track in his head how many nights he’d had to hold Trevor while he cried himself to sleep in those early days, still very much a boy who didn’t understand why no one seemed to want him, and at some point, Michael forgot where it became about consoling his friend and wanting to help him to the desire of loving a broken person he needed to fix because he could see the greatest in that person if only someone loved him the way he should be loved. 

Oh, and he tried. Oh, _how he tried_. But he had his _own_ problems, his own addictions in those early days. And oh how _Trevor_ became one of them. 

They snorted lines and met in between them, crashing lips and noses, no cares in the world. There were no Amandas just yet, just them and usually the open road, wherever they were sent or wherever they felt like going. It was fast, it was pure, it was love, and it scared the fuck out of Michael who had no idea what to do with it. 

So he did the only thing he knew to do, the only lesson in life his deadbeat dad had bothered to spare him: he distanced himself greatly. He found someone else. 

And Trevor began getting high alone, but he was never depressed alone. No, never that. He just didn’t realize it

_It’s just medicine_

_It’s just medicine_

He knows it would be easy to leave, but it’s actually easier for him to just stay and help. It irons out the wrinkles in his fucked up psyche a helluva lot better than therapy ever could. Throwing away the needles, the pipes, the baggies, the rocks, the pills -- every last bit of the paraphernalia and shit -- soothes his soul more than the taste of whiskey has in a long while. When he begins to clean the musty junked trailer -- and as Tracey comes around to join him later in his task -- it feels better than his Redwoods, and he doesn’t understand it fully. 

But it feels great. This is what it’s like -- after he starts to get it during the second hour -- when you help someone you love. 

A painfully cracked voice tries to call out to him just like it’s done for all these years as if he’s still the saint it seeks. “Water,” it whispers, and a hand barely motions at its throat that has Tracey moving quickly for bottled water from the fridge. When she leaves, dead muddy eyes look up harshly at him, regarding him plainly, trusting for the truth, “This time…how long?”

Michael begins to answer but can’t. It’s too much. The truth hits too fucking hard right now, so he closes his weary eyes and turns away slightly. 

The same hand that was just pointing at the throat of its owner grips him, and Michael’s mortified by how many scars are just from the meth use alone. Tears form in the corners of his eyes as Trevor takes the offered water from Tracey and guzzles a little down, but it’s been so long, he chokes on some. He coughs and sputters as he tries to form words. “I’m sorry, Mikey. I think I wanna stop.”

It comes out so softly, he thinks it’s just more bullshit at first, but when he sees the sincerity behind Trevor’s otherwise empty expression, he doesn’t know what to say, really. 

“So are you sure, Uncle T? Like, you’ve done this song and dance a few times.” Leave it to Tracey to voice his skepticism aloud.

Trevor opens up his arms to her, and she hesitates at first because she’s an adult now, it’s so easy to get burnt repeatedly by those you love, but something convinces her, forcing her into his hug just like she did when she was just a young girl. 

_His_ Tracey, so much like him. Hard to detect bullshit when you want or love something so badly. When you just want the best. 

Trevor snuggles her close just like he always has and cracks a grin which, in turn, cracks his lips and the skin around them till he’s bleeding, and it’s almost hard to bear this burden, but it’s his to carry. “I swear, Trace. I want to do this for all of you. I...I don’t want to do this anymore.” His shy gaze wanders up into Michael’s. “I don’t want to do this...to you anymore.” And there is a fiery spark of the old him in those hollow eyes that twinkle in the afternoon sun. 

And Michael _hopes_ , dear God, he _tries_ to remember how to pray the prayer of the rosary after all of these fucking years because he _needs_ this, they _both_ need this so much, to be done with the guilt, the burden, the addictions. 

He prays Trevor gets it right _this_ time, but even if it doesn’t happen, he will still be here to pick up the pieces he broke long ago and keep trying to fix them both, to fix him. After all, he’s the one who told him that medicine was supposed to help him feel better. 

_It’s just medicine._


End file.
